Bangladeshi Islamists Protest Amid Demand for Blasphemy Law

April 8 (Bloomberg) -- A Bangladeshi Islamic group bid to
enforce a shutdown across the country today as it demands the
government introduce new anti-blasphemy laws to punish bloggers
it says have defamed Islam.

Hefajat-e-Islam, a radical group based in the southern
seaport city of Chittagong, rallied as many as half a million
supporters in central Dhaka on April 6. Roads in the capital
were almost empty today and some bus services to the city
weren’t operating. Private businesses were shut, while
government offices opened. Clashes were reported in Chittagong.

Hefajat’s protest is backed by another Islamist outfit, the
Jamaat-e-Islami, whose leaders are on trial for war crimes
committed during the country’s independence struggle in 1971.

It was those hearings that sparked the present crisis in
Bangladesh. As the first verdicts were delivered this year,
online activists and youth groups gathered in the capital’s
Shahbag square and, through postings on Facebook and other
social media, called for those found guilty by the tribunal to
be sentenced to death.

As crowds swelled in Shahbag, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
Wajed Feb. 17 empowered judges hearing the war crimes cases to
punish any organization whose members were involved. The move
sparked reports the government was preparing to ban Jamaat, an
extremist group which sided with Pakistan during the war.

“The atheists have been publicizing anti-Islamic
propaganda in different ways, including academic syllabus and
writings on blogs under government support,” Rafiqul Islam
Khan, acting secretary general of Jamaat, said in a statement.
“The country’s Islam-loving people are united against the anti-Islamic government,” he said.

Police Wounded

At least 14 people, including four policemen, were injured
as Hefajat activists attacked members of the student wing of the
ruling Awami League in Chittagong during the shutdown, the Daily
Star reported. Some suffered bullet wounds. Train services were
halted on some routes, according to the newspaper.

About 500 people marched through Dhaka in protest over the
group’s demands, Sirajul Islam, officer in charge of the police
station at Shahbag, said.

Besides the demand for tough laws to punish those it sees
as maligning Islam and Prophet Muhammad, Hefajat is seeking the
release of Islamic scholars and madrassah students detained by
police since deadly protests erupted over the tribunal’s
rulings.

Religious Agenda

It has also called on the government to adopt much of its
religious agenda, such as stopping “foreign cultural
intrusions, including free mixing of men and women,” making an
Islamic education mandatory for all children, and preventing the
placing of “idols” across Dhaka, which it called a “city of
mosques.” Foreign non-government organizations that the group
accuses of carrying out conversions to Christianity must be
curbed.

“Bangladesh is at a critical juncture,” Meghna
Guhathakurta, a researcher on international relations, said in a
phone interview yesterday. “The government sees the Shahbag
movement at one end of the spectrum and Hefajat-e-Islam is at
the other end,” Guhathakurta said. “And the Awami League is
taking a middle path.”

Hasina rejected the Islamists’ demands in an interview with
the British Broadcasting Corporation. “We don’t have any plan”
to change the country’s laws, she told the BBC. “We don’t need
it. They should know that existing laws are enough.”

Murder, Rape

The government earlier this month said current laws
protecting religious sentiment would be amended to allow harsher
punishments.

Today’s Hefajat-backed shutdown will be followed by a 36-hour strike called by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist
Party and its key ally, Jamaat, starting tomorrow.

At the end of British colonial rule in 1947, East and West
Pakistan were separated by 2,000 kilometers (1,241 miles) of
Indian territory. Pakistani troops in 1971 attempted to quell a
nationalist uprising in the east that was triggered by the
jailing of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had led his Awami League
to victory in elections. The war ended nine months later with
the creation of Bangladesh after Indian forces helped defeat
Pakistan’s army.

In a sign of the widespread anger the alleged mass murders,
rapes and abductions four decades ago can still provoke, the
Shahbag protest site drew bloggers, writers, singers, teachers,
students, and the country’s cricket team. Police say the
gathering has at times swelled to 100,000 people.

While Hasina, Sheikh Mujibur’s daughter, says the tribunal
is about righting an historic wrong, opponents have called the
trials politically motivated.